Send My Love (to your new lover)

Patience

"Miss Parkerr?" he asked again, urgently.

I'd drifted.

Oops.

"Hello. Yes. I'm here. Please tell me, is the dress ruined?"

"Yes ma'am. It was destroyed when the driver was rear-ended."

Deep breath, Jennifer.

Take a very...deep...breath.

Allow what is to be.

"From that place of radical acceptance, major change can happen," Robert's words of wisdom echoed through my brain. I snapped back to reality and decided there was no sense in flipping out at all. It wasn't going to change anything.

"Okay...thank you for calling. I hope your driver will be alright....yes...okay, bye," I said quietly and ended the call then handed my mother her phone.

"Jennifer! What are we supposed to do?" my mother shrieked as she followed me inside the house.

"Have you seen Robert?" I asked her as we passed the kitchen.

"He's upstairs getting dressed," my mom huffed as I left her to go find my partner-in-crime. I could hear him singing from inside the bedroom and when I burst through the doors, he shrieked like a little boy.

"Marge! You're not supposed to see me before the ceremony!" he cried out, pretending to be modest.

"Oh stop it," I chided him and plunked down on the end of the bed. "Wanna hear something that's really awful?"

"It must not be that awful because you're not screeching like an owl or throwing things at me," he quipped as he sat down next to me and draped his arm over my shoulders.

"My dress is destroyed. The cleaner just called," I stared off into the distance, with absolutely no idea what to do next.

"And...you're sure you haven't reamed anyone out or thrown anything?" A shit-eating grin crept across his face as he waited for my response. Never wanting to disappoint, I grabbed a throw pillow and smacked him in the chest, knocking him off-kilter.

"You don't seem too broken up about it," he stated his observation.

"I'm not, surprisingly. We'll just have a change in our wardrobe. God knows you have enough suits."

"That is true. What are you going to do--" he started to speak but halted himself and I could tell he was thinking of something specific. "I know. Follow me."

So I did. He led me into the closet and extracted a dress from the many that I have hanging in there. He presented his choice and I turned my nose up in confusion.

"Bobby, that's a sundress. Our guests are going to be in suits and ties and formalwear."

"I don't care. This is my favorite dress of yours. I remember the first time I saw you in this....out on your porch. Remember?"

I could remember. He'd come to my little house for the first time and I know it sounds really cliché but that's when my life changed forever. Once I let go of my anger and let him in, my life became something I never even knew was possible. I was in love with someone that was as proud of me as I was of him. He was someone that could drive me to a fit of blind rage in one instant and have me purring like a kitten in the next. Only someone that really, really knows and loves you can do that.

                                       ***

"Thank you, family and friends for joining us today to celebrate the love of my dad, Robert and the coolest lady I know, Jennifer Parker--"